This is an Oldie — Sept. 14, WashPost — but still a Goodie for adding fuel to Brendan’s Hair-on-Fire :) about the post-Nov. 2 prospects for interminable pestiferous litigation. (Very Belated Hat Tips to sister-in-law Patty Ash, & to CT Republican Oracular Mouth of Truth Bob Lutts. :)

Read the Whole thing, it’s worth it. A not-Perfect (of course :) but still very Decent piece of election-law journalism: “Dementia and the Voter”.

It’s an Old problem of course. In elections administration there is never anything truly, suddenly, New under the sun; only things “newly” re-re-re-”discovered” by the Media. / But — in the Paranoid Penumbra of Election 2000, and as we Boomers stubbornly continue to Age, it does become…uh, now what was I saying?…OH YEAH it becomes increasingly Significant. (Albeit NOT increasingly Solvable. :)

Again I recommend, “Read The Whole Thing.”. Closely. It really IS a good job. Fair & Balanced. (I.e., the subtext is that the WarshPost writer agrees with MEEE: you can’t Solve this. Fuggedaboudit. :)

Extensive, tendentiously-selected-and-emphases-added, Money Quotes:

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So: will CBS’s Dan Rather be the next Howell Raines?

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And, much more importantly :), does Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams face the fate of Michael Collins at Beal na mBlath?

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Let us Pray: No. In both instances.

Say Hello to 4179 Toutatis,

“…named for the ancient Gallic/Celtic god by whom characters swear loud oaths in the French Astérix le Gaulois cartoons and comic books…astronomers have determined that this year’s flyby distance is Toutatis’s closest approach at least as far back as 1353 and the closest until at least 2562.”

It will zoom by at 4 times the Earth-Moon distance, they say. That’s plenty close enough, I say. :)

The “Sky & Telescope” article includes interesting 1992 radar images of Toutatis’s “extremely irregular, almost bowling-pin-shaped body”. It is rather odd-looking.

“… It travels around the Sun in nearly the same plane as Earth, so close flybys are frequent…we know for certain that it will not hit Earth during at least the next 65 years, and that the chance of a collision is extremely minuscule for at least several centuries after that.”

Very Commendable. :)

Read the whole thing. Pay particular attention to the part about how the “topocentric parallax may shift the asteroid’s track as much as 0.1° away from the standard, geocentric track calculated on the charted dates for a hypothetical observer at the center of the Earth.” Just as I thought, Dr. Watson! (Saaay, didn’t I see that hypothetical observer in “The Core”? :)

As predicted, the Supreme Court of Florida, reversing the trial court’s overeaching & sillyarse decision, has ruled (6 to 1) that Ralphie Boy shall be on the FL ballot.

This is unfortunate politics but sound law. (Incidentally, it ought to put to rest the Year 2000 Republican notion that SCOFL is merely a partisan satrap of the Dimmycratic Party. It ought to; but of course it won’t. :)

Just as an aside, note the Hurricane Effect.

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DC ex-Mayor Cracks 57% in Dem primary for Ward 8 Council seat.

:>

For those who think (as debated in a comment thread herein some time back) that voting by mail is a panacea for our balloting problems, here’s a New York Times piece which suggests that the Postal Ballot (as the Brits so Britishly call it) may be to 2004 as the Hanging Chad was to 2000 — though for different reasons, since now the Maddened Thousands might just have some real reason to cry “Fraud!” (Besides the plain old Agony of Defeat, I mean. :)

Absentee Votes Worry Officials as Nov. 2 Nears

(Hat Tip: Bob Lutts, CT Republican oracle. :)

This news article, IMUAO {= in my unspeakably arrogant opinion :}, is — how shall I put it? — considerably less inaccurate, factually & legally, than is the Fact & Law foundation for the typical NYT Editorial on any elections-administration-related subject.

Excerpt:

The increasing popularity of absentee voting is reshaping how and when the country votes. Since the last presidential election, a growing number of election officials and party operatives have been promoting absentee balloting as a way to make it easier for people to vote and alleviate the crush of Election Day. At least 26 states now let residents cast absentee ballots without needing the traditional excuse of not being able to make it to polling places. That is six more states than allowed the practice in 2000.

As a result, as many as one in four Americans are expected to vote by absentee ballot in the presidential race, a process that begins today, nearly two months before Election Day, as North Carolina becomes the first state to distribute ballots.

[I don’t know what it was in 2000 — the FEC site doesn’t seem to have it, though I’m sure Somebody does — but, one in four is Way too many. IMUAO. I have spoken. - the Guestblogger :]

But some experts say that concerns about a repeat in problems with voting machines is overshadowing the more pressing issue of absentee ballot fraud.

“Everybody was worried about the chads in the 2000 election,” said Damon H. Slone, a former West Virginia election fraud investigator, “when in fact by loosening up the restrictions on absentee voting they have opened up more chances for fraud to be done than what legitimate mistakes were made in Florida.”

Even making allowance for some margin-of-error due to andecdotality, exaggeration & alarmism, many of the issues cited in the piece are real — and peculiar to voting absentee. Read the whole thing.

Other, non-fraud-related, questions arise too, beyond those treated in the article. E.g., (1) can the USPS adequately handle a substantially increased postal-ballot volume? (2) If (say) 25% of the Presidential votes (that’s in excess of 25 million) are on Paper — not “backup paper audit trails” now, just plain old original Paper, some of it to be tallied by machines subject to hand recount, & some counted by hand in the first place (and the second place, and the third…?) — will we see the decisive state(s) again Decided by weary officials trying to discern the Intent of the postal voters’ ambiguous & incorrect markings on that paper? (Of course we’ll Go Postal if we do. But — we may.)

So, think about it, folks. What with the relative Fraud-friendliness; and the overburdened USPS middleman (note: that’s often a 4-way postal transaction — application form goes out from election clerk to voter, completed application from voter back to clerk, ballot from clerk to voter, ballot from voter back to clerk); and the Paper-counting Uncertainty principle: do we really want the Absentee vote to rise to 100%?

Also, just as an aside, do we really think that the Election of the 2004 Presidential Electors will be Decided on November 2? One-quarter of the participating electorate casting their votes before then, sounds like a pretty darn sizeable Statistical Sample to me. Oh, sure, it’ll be skewed because of some demographic characteristics which differ between those who vote absentee & those who still bother to drag their tails to the polls. But, as the size of the former segment expands relative to the latter, what with the Early voting, the AB-on-demand, the Oregon All-Postal Plan, etc. — that demographic gap diminishes apace. / Unless it is again squeaky-close in the EC like last time, I think that when what we are pleased to call “Election Day” dawns it just might already be All Over but the Ratifying, as the laggard 75% of us shuffle on in to divide in close proportion to our robust Advance Team’s choice. The Poll that Counts may have opened today. In North Carolina. :)

Dumbass Crooks Put their Names on Envelopes; Postmarked from the Joint

:)

Apparently the latest of 8 (and counting??) gubernatorial recipients are Romney of MA and Pataki of NY.

Excerpts:

“Governor’s offices in Montana, Texas, Idaho, Nebraska, Washington and Utah received the letters on Thursday. They were rigged with matches set to ignite when the letters were opened…

“All were postmarked from the Ely State Prison in Ely, Nevada, officials said.

“Glen Whorton, assistant director for the Nevada Corrections Department, said two inmates whose names are on the envelopes were being questioned at the prison in eastern Nevada, and the FBI is involved.”

Footnote: 7 of the reported 8 chief-executive addressees are Republicans. The exception is Gov. Gary Locke, D-WA.

PS: Hm. / On the other hand — more plausibly — I bet the actual incarcerated sender(s) put the names of a couple of, ahem, ex-friends — y’know, estranged prisonyard tennis partners or something — on the envelopes, just for Spite. :)

As of 6 pm EDT today, September 9, Richard Winger’s excellent & authoritative (albeit very pro-small-party-&-independent) Ballot Access News charts Ralphie Boy’s status as follows [please note that all snide Commentary herein is strictly mine, not Richard’s]:

“Already On” - 26 states, including the 13 Battlegrounds (or sort-of battlegrounds :) of Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan [where the Reform “Party” rejected its “national” “nominee” but some 45,000 Republican-gathered independent petition signatures, slightly supplementing Ralph’s own 5,000 or so, shoved him Across the Line, yeah like he isn’t always Over the Top anyway :], Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia.

“Finished” (meaning, I think, petitions/papers submitted but official review re Certification not yet completed) - 6 states, including battlegrounds Maine and Wisconsin.

“Disputed” (meaning, I guess, that the Wrangling has commenced & the Litigation may Loom :) - 3 states, including battleground (?) Virginia.

“In court” - 8 states, including 6 b’grounds: Arizona [where Ralphie’s legions had initially conceded failure & humbly vowed to Moot the Suit, then thought better, or worser, of it :], Florida [Fie! but, see below], North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. / In Florida, as in Michigan, the Reform Party’s recognized status had been presumed to provide an “automatic” Nader ballot spot — but (scroll down below the Table in this linked Winger item) the Dems have sued, and they won a preliminary injunction today, though I must say it looks a bit Thin to me, given that the FL Reformistas (such as they are :) did certify Ralph to be their Man.

“Too Late” - 6 states, including that Show-me Sho’-nuff battleground (Battleship? :) Missouri.

2 states, including see-saw Minnesota, apparently are still In Process, i.e. some signatures have been submitted but the deadline hasn’t arrived and more petition sheets are thought to be on the way.

Mr. Winger calculates that Nader’s “Highest Potential” number of ballot-accessed states is 44, footnoting that “*’Potential’ means the number of states the candidate would be on, if everything now in doubt is settled advantageously to that candidate.” Maximum 44 On would mean Minimum 7 Off (remember D.C.), which I’m guessing would be the 6 “Too Late” States :) plus 1 of the 6 deadline-expired “Finished” ones where Richard (who has excellent state-elections-office sources :) may have learned that there’s No Way Ralph handed in enough — OR, 1 of the 3 “Disputed” or 8 “In Court” where he may know that Ralph just hasn’t got a Prayer at all, at all. :)

For Comparative purposes: the Libertarian ticket is Already On in 44 states, Highest Potential 50; Green, AO 28, HP 33; Constitution, AO 35, HP 41; and of course the Socialist Workers, AO 9, HP 15 [well done, Comrades! Like, now where can I dump these Chains? :].

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I must admit, Nader is doing BTJE. (Better Than Joe Expected :)

But — not well enough to deprive yer man of his extended Snarl & Whine in Sunday’s Washington Post.

I was going to Fisk some well-selected Excerpts :), but fuggedaboud it, this Guestpiece is just exactly Verbose & Nasty enough, as is. :) But do read Ralph closely. Follow the opposition’s Money Trail: its horrifying trailhead Sources prove, by way of their dark Motive, that Ralph is plainly Entitled to be on all the ballots, if only to compensate for his Pain & Suffering. Thrill to the implication that Flawed petitions in Illinois are miraculously Cured by the claim that it was state workers with other duties who Flagged them. Also, keep a sharp eye out for certain Principles, Rights & Civil Liberties heretofore Undiscovered even in the deepest Penumbrae of the Election Law.

As Alice Kramden (Audrey Meadows) would have said: “Ohhh, Raaalph!”. You poor oppressed champion of the people: We’ll cry a river over you. :)

Brendan by email invited the Guestbloggers:

If anybody is watching Cheney’s speech, I encourage you to guest-blog your thoughts, reactions, memorable quotes, etc. I’m at the library reading Torts, and will not be watching dear old Dick.

Ask, and ye shall receive More than ye asked:

1) Predictably, in his modulated low-key style, complete with his everpresent crooked little Halliburton smile :), the Comeback Dick was really quite good. He is a worthy Neocon Icon; and it is probably true, as his principal has so snappily said, that “Dick Cheney can be President.” (It is probably also true that he already is President, de facto; but never mind about that now. :)

BUT — as the Geico commercials say — there’s some Good News.

2) Thank God, thank all the Saints, for the Republicans’ official Convention Keynote Speaker, Senator Zell Miller, “D” - GA — and a real Peach if ever there was one. :) There is no joy in Crawford but they are dancing in the little island lanes of Nantucket tonight: for mighty Karl Rove has, at last, screwed up. / “Zig Zag” Zell — who began his political career as a big booster of arch-segregationist GA D Gov. Lester “Ax Handle” Maddox back in the ’60’s, & progressed to become a huge fan of his Senate colleague John Kerry’s war-herosim only a few years ago — came full circle Wednesday night, with a Republican keynote speech that made Pat Buchanan’s “culture wars” one in ‘92 seem positively Sensitive by comparison.

I can’t figure out how to Link to the Video of Zell’s astounding performance — you’ve really got to See & Hear, not just Read, it — but, you can find it, I’m sure.

See? Even the secularistical Democrats’ prayers can be answered! / All things being relative, even Howard Dean can be seen as the Poster Boy for the promise of Anger Management. / “Hope is on the Way!” GO ZELL! :)

UPDATE FROM THE WEBMASTER: Here’s a link to the video. If that doesn’t work, just go to C-SPAN’s RNC page and look around for “Zell Miller.”

I can’t honestly Convention-blog in a serious way, because unlike Andrew I haven’t paid much attention so far. Truth be told, I haven’t watched any of it today. Not Boycotting, just doing other stuff.

But I did catch Giuliani (not McCain) last night. I agree with Andrew (!): he was excellent. Very persuasive. (Roo-DEE! Roo-DEE!! NOWAIT! My God, what am I saying? :) Yes, leave it to a savvy Nyew Yawk City Italo-Am Republican Pol. If Irish Diplomacy is the ability to tell a man to go to Hell in such a way that he’ll enjoy the Trip, Rudy’s Italian charm may consist in the ability to bash John Kerry’s alleged Flip-flopperies in such a way that the little interrogatory shoulders-shrug-with-palms-upturned-&-smiley-face humanizes the Attack Dog assignment. VERY well done.

Giuliani, an effective, extremely controversial and divisive Mayor of NYC, was Reborn politically — and, I think, personally — on 09/11/2001. Transformed Utterly. (Apologies to Yeats. :) Ever since, he takes that and Runs with it. Who could blame him? Not me. He’s entitled.

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Like father, like son: I like the Roll Calls. :)

Now let me jusht shay thish about that (apologies to JFK I :) — This is a Highly Irregular Procedure. (Apologies to the Wizard of Oz. :)

I gather that the Republicans, always conservatively respectful of Precedent, Custom & Tradition, adopted a convention rule yesterday morning, presumably by unanimous vote of about 37 seriously hung-over Delegates :), authorizing the Chair (Dennis Hastert of Illinois), at his doubtless-legendary Discretion, to conduct a Rolling Roll Call Vote over the course of 3 separate convention days. / Which Dennis the H. (not to be confused with that sellout Traitor to the Progressive cause, Dennis the K. of Ohio :) immediately, albeit Discreetly, decided to do, Surprise Surprise.

Accordingly, on Monday Bush and Cheney were placed into nomination; and the roll was called from Alabama through Louisiana — to resume today, and Wednesday.

Interestingly, the states voting yesterday (see, I watched this, though I didn’t watch McCain’s speech — I always focus on the important stuff :) voted for Bush. Nobody mentioned Cheney, though he had been Placed in Nomination for VP. / I watched the Secretary commencing the roll-call & I don’t think she ever stated what Office(s?) it was for. / One presumes, from the voting, that it is for the nomination for President — and thus, that they will Do Cheney by Acclamation, separately, later. / If not, maybe Brendan’s Tick-Tock Veep Clock IS still running. :)

Favorite Monday Votes (close paraphrases, from memory):

Connecticut - state GOP Chm. Herb Shepherdson - ‘Madame Chairman, many of you know Connecticut as the Nutmeg State. To us, we are the Next Battleground State! We are seven points down and we are coming up!’ (He then, after a nice mention of Gov. Jodi Rell — none of her predecessor of course — and of the twin-championship Huskies, cast all the votes for Bush. :)

Delaware - ‘Mme. Secretary, on behalf of the Delaware Fighting Blue Hens, Delaware votes for George W. Bush!’

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Oh yeah: I also watched, on C-SPAN 2, some Conventions Past film. Favorite (you’ll never guess :) - 1964, Republican, Cow Palace, San Francisco. :) Yes, these 40 years have come & gone but still my memory of it is validated as accurate. Old Barry was Just Awful. :) Of course he was Doomed anyway; but I bet that speech, all by itself, is what knocked him down below 40%.

Well, it’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it, so here goes:

What say you all, about the alleged Israeli spy in the Pentagon?

Do we believe it? Is it a Wolfowitzian conspiracy? Is it “false and outrageous”? Why was it leaked just now?

Most importantly, did anybody besides me see Pat Buchanan holding forth about it on the tube last night? As I had predicted to my wife Kinaret Chaye as soon as I heard about this story, yer man Paddy was beside himself with excitement, speculation & glee. (You can tell by the escalating pitch of his voice. Patrick J. should be elected Squeaker of the House, IMO. :) His theory is that the Israelis leaked it, in order to stop the investigation before it goes any further. / Now I eagerly await the Take of that other esteemed Elder of Zion, Bob Novak.

P.S. On the same program before Buchanan came on, some ex-Spook, interviewed by phone & claiming all sorts of inside knowledge of the matter, stated that it is all connected with the forged memo about the Never-happened Iraqi effort to buy uranium from Niger. IOW, Israel was the Forger. In order to bolster Bush’s case for taking out Saddam. (Then came Buchanan’s turn and he jumped onto that one with great enthusiasm.)

The two-year-old Florida Primary unused voting-audit data, reported recently to have been erased in two server crashes (”Millions of Ballots! THROWN OUT!!!” :), has turned up on a CD in the County Elections Office.

Implacable elections-administration critics, who had condemned the loss of this archived historical information as evidence that Florida votes still do not Count, are now expected to blast its retrieval as absolute Proof that Florida elections are corrupt exercises run by incompetent idiots.

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In more significant news: an elderly retired Connecticut State Employee has caught a new state record Channel Catfish.

The be-barbeled Ictalurus punctatus was a rare albino of the species; and even more surpringly to me, was taken on an artifical bait — albeit a soft-plastic imitation of one of Old Mister Whiskers’ favorite forages, the noble Worm. In my vast experience :), Cats seldom hit artificials of any kind. The guy was angling for Bass. Imagine his Surprise!

Reasonable critics of the CT DEP Fisheries Division are expected to Question the alleged Record, in light of the suspicious facts that (a) the purported fish supposedly died under mysterious circumstances in a farm pond far from its Habitat the very next day, and (b) the elderly retired state worker supposedly Landing the questionable whopper was Not Me. :)

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Re this last item, I have tried to comply with Brendan’s Guestbloggers’ Rule #8, entitled “Think before you Rant”, by — most uncharacteristically — trying to actually Learn something about the subject prior to Posting on it. But all my Googling has been in vain.

Therefore: can somebody who may have been Watching during the time-block indicated below, please tell me whether the Democratic National Convention did in fact on Thursday evening Nominate a Candidate for Vice President of the United States – as had been placed on (hastily shoehorned into??? :) the Official Schedule reflected here? And if So, did such Nominee then Accept, as is reportedly required, for the first time, by the newly-amended Party Rules?

The relevent Schedule excerpt: within the Thursday 4 pm to 7 pm time period:

“Vice Presidential Nomination Process

The Honorable Raul Grijalva
U.S. House of Representatives, Arizona
Moves for Acclimation and Calls for Vote”

They did it, right? (Right?? :)

UPDATE: See the Comments hereto – wherein Brendan, the Witch-King of the Googlesith, confirms via the Arizona Republic that Yes, Right, they Did it. / And his linked article states that the several Edwards Nomination speakers were selected last week — so, No, it wasn’t a Last-minute Scramble situation, as I so Drudgerishly implied above, even whilst covering my proverbial Posterior (or, was it the Blogmaster’s???) with assorted, and for that matter Sordid, Parentheses, Italics, and Triple Questionmarks. :) The only part I Forgot was the “Developing…”

Joe Loy posting for Brendan. He can’t post by cellphone because networks clogged, but he was able to call us. He is in NYC at work, 13th floor in Tribeca, power is out — as it is in many major US & Canadian cities. He is OK, & will post more when it becomes possible. Visit CNN for the latest.